Volume II Part 14 (1/2)
He died in 1903.]
The Jews of Warsaw partic.i.p.ated in all street manifestations and political processions which took place during the year 1860-1861. Among those pierced by Cossack bullets during the manifestation of February 27, 1861, were several Jews. The indignation which this shooting down of defenceless people aroused in Warsaw is generally regarded as the immediate cause of the mutiny. Rabbi Meisels was a member of the deputation which went to Viceroy Gorchakov to demand satisfaction for the blood that had been spilled. In the demonstrative funeral procession which followed the coffins of the victims the Jewish clergy, headed by Meisels, marched alongside of the Catholic priesthood. Many Jews attended the memorial services in the Catholic churches at which fiery patriotic speeches were delivered. Similar demonstrations of mourning were held in the synagogues. An appeal sent out broadcast by the circle of patriotic Jewish Poles reminded the Jews of the anti-Jewish hatred of the Russian bureaucracy, and called upon them ”to clasp joyfully the brotherly hand held forth by them (the Poles), to place themselves under the banner of the nation whose ministers of religion have in all churches spoken of us in words of love and brotherhood.”
The whole year 1861 stood, at least as far as the Polish capital was concerned, under the sign of Polish-Jewish ”brotherhood.” At the synagogue service held in memory of the historian Lelevel Jastrow preached a patriotic sermon. On the day of the Jewish New Year prayers were offered up in the synagogues for the success of the Polish cause, accompanied by the singing of the national Polish hymn _Boze cos Polske_. [1] When, as a protest against the invasion of the churches by the Russian soldiery, the Catholic clergy closed all churches in Warsaw, the rabbis and communal elders followed suit, and ordered the closing of the synagogues. This action aroused the ire of Lieders, the new viceroy.
Rabbi Meisels, the preachers Jastrow and Kramshtyk as well as the president of the ”Congregational Board” were placed under arrest. The prisoners were kept in the citadel of Warsaw for three months, but were then released.
[Footnote 1: p.r.o.nounce, _Bozhe, tzosh Polske_, ”O Lord, Thou that hast for so many ages guarded Poland with the s.h.i.+ning s.h.i.+eld of Thy protection!”--the first words of the hymn.]
In the meantime Marquis Vyelepolski, acting as mediator between the Russian Government and the Polish people, had prepared his plan of reforms as a means of warding off the mutiny. Among these reforms, which aimed at the partial restoration of Polish autonomy and the improvement of the status of the peasantry, was included a law providing for the ”legal equality of the Jews.” Wielding considerable influence, first as director of the Polish Commission of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction, and later as the head of the whole civil administration of the Kingdom, Vyelepolski was able to secure St. Petersburg's a.s.sent to his project. On May 24, 1862, Alexander II. signed an ukase revoking the suspensory decree of 180 1808, [1] which had entailed numerous disabilities for the Jews incompatible with the new tendencies in the political and agrarian life of the Kingdom. This ukase conferred the following rights upon the Jews:
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 299.]
1. To acquire immovable property on all manorial estates on which the peasants had pa.s.sed from the state of serfs into that of tenants.
2. To settle freely in the formerly prohibited cities and city districts, [1] not excluding those situated within the twenty-one verst zone along the Prussian and Austrian frontier. [2]
3. To appear as witnesses in court on an equal footing with Christians in all legal proceedings and to take an oath in a new, less humiliating form.
[Footnote 1: See above, pp. 172 and 178.]
[Footnote 2: See above, p. 95.]
Bestowing these privileges upon the Polish Jews in the hope of bringing about their amalgamation with the local Christian population, the Tzar forbids in the same ukase the further use of Hebrew and Yiddish in all civil affairs and legal doc.u.ments, such as contracts, wills, obligations, also in commercial ledgers and even in business correspondence. In conclusion, the ukase directs the Administrative Council of the Kingdom of Poland to revise and eventually to repeal all the other laws which hamper the Jews in their pursuit of crafts and industries by imposing special taxes upon them.
This ukase of Alexander II., though revoking only part of the insulting restrictions in the elementary civil rights of the Jews, was given the high-sounding t.i.tle of an ”Act of Emanc.i.p.ation.” The secluded hasidic ma.s.s of Poland was glad to accept the legal alleviations offered to it, without thinking of any linguistic or other kind of a.s.similation. On the other hand, the a.s.similated Jewish _intelligentzia_, which had joined the ranks of the Polish insurgents, was dreaming of complete emanc.i.p.ation, and confidently hoped to attain it upon the successful termination of the revolutionary enterprise.
In the meantime the revolution was a.s.suming ever larger proportions. The year 1863 arrived. The demonstrations on the streets of Warsaw were succeeded by b.l.o.o.d.y skirmishes between the Polish insurgents and the Russian troops in the woods of Poland and Lithuania. The Jews took no active part in this phase of the rebellion. As far as Poland proper was concerned, their partic.i.p.ation was limited to the secret revolutionary propaganda. In Lithuania again neither the Jewish ma.s.ses nor the newly arisen cla.s.s of intellectuals sympathized with the Polish cause. In that part of the country the systematic Jew-baiting of the Polish pans, or n.o.ble landowners, was still fresh in the minds, and the Jews, moreover, were pinning all their faith to the emanc.i.p.ation to be bestowed by St.
Petersburg. The will o' the wisp of Russification had already begun to lure the Jewish professional cla.s.s. In many Lithuanian localities the Jews who failed to show their sympathy with the Polish revolutionaries ran the risk of being dealt with severely. Here and there, as had been the case in 1831, the rebels were as good as their word, and hanged or shot the Jews suspected of pro-Russian sympathies.
The reserved att.i.tude of the Lithuanian Jews throughout the mutiny proved their salvation after the suppression of the rebellion, when the ferocious Muravyov, the governor-general of Vilna, took up his b.l.o.o.d.y work of retribution. As for the Kingdom of Poland, neither the revolution nor its suppression entailed any serious consequences for them. True, the fraternization of the Warsaw Jews with the Poles during the revolutionary years weakened for a little while the hereditary Jew-hatred of the Polish people, and helped to intensify the fever of Polonization which had seized the Jewish upper cla.s.ses. But indirectly the effects of the Polish rebellion were detrimental to the Jews of the rest of the Empire. The insurrection was not only followed by a general wave of political reaction, but it also gave strong impetus to the policy of Russification which was now applied with particular vigor to the Western provinces, and was damaging to the Jews both from the civil and the cultural point of view.
CHAPTER XIX
THE REACTION UNDER ALEXANDER II.
1. CHANGE OF ATt.i.tUDE TOWARD THE JEWISH PROBLEM
The decided drift toward political reaction in the second part of Alexander's reign affected also the specific Jewish problem, which the h.o.m.oeopathic reforms, designed to ”ameliorate” a fraction of the Jewish people, had tried to solve in vain. The general reaction showed itself in the fact that, after having carried out the first great reforms, such as the liberation of the peasantry, the introduction of rural self-government and the reorganization of the administration of the law, the Government considered the task of Russian regeneration to be completed, and stubbornly refused, to use the expression current at the time, ”to crown the edifice” by the one great political reform, the grant of a const.i.tution and political liberty. This refusal widened the breach between the Government and the progressive element of the Russian people, whose hopes were riveted on the ultimate goal of political reorganization. The striving for liberty, driven under ground by police and censors.h.i.+p, a.s.sumed among the Russian youth the character of a revolutionary movement. And when the murderous hand of the ”Third Section” [1] descended heavily upon the champions of liberty, the youthful revolutionaries retorted with political terrorism which darkened the last days of Alexander II. and led to his a.s.sa.s.sination.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 21, n. 1.]
The complete emanc.i.p.ation of the Jews was out of place in this atmosphere of growing official reaction. The same bureaucracy which halted the march of the ”great reforms” for the country at large was not inclined to allow even minor reforms when affecting the Jews only. Even the former desire for a ”graded” and partial amelioration of the position of the Jews had vanished. Instead, the center of the stage was again occupied by the old red-tape activities, by discussions about the Jewish question--endless no less than fruitless--in the recesses of bureaucratic committees and sub-committees, by oracular animadversions of governors and governors-general upon the conduct of the Jews, and so on. Theory-mongering of the reactionary variety was again at a premium.
Once more the authorities debated the question whether the Jews were to be regarded as useful or harmful to the State, instead of putting the diametrically opposite question of simple justice: whether the State which is called upon to serve the Jews as part of the civic organism of Russia is useful to them to an extent which may be lawfully claimed by them.
Under Nicholas I. the Government chancelleries had been busy inventing new remedies against the ”separatism” of the Jews and their ”harmful pursuits.” During the first liberal years of Alexander's reign commerce ceased to be branded as ”a harmful pursuit.” Yet as soon as the Jewish merchants, stimulated by the partial extension of their right of residence and occupation, displayed a wider economic activity and became successful compet.i.tors of the ”original” Russian business men, they were met with shouts of protest demanding that this Jewish ”exploitation” be effectively ”curbed.”
In this connection it must be pointed out that the economic advancement of the Jews was not altogether due to the privileges accorded to them by the Russian legislation, but was rather the effect of general economic conditions. The great progress in industrial life during ”the era of reforms,” more particularly the expansion of railroad enterprises during the sixties and seventies, opened up a wide field for the energies of Jewish capitalists. Moreover, the abolition, in 1861, of the old system of farming out the sale of liquor transferred a part of the big Jewish capital from the liquor traffic into railroad building. The Jewish ”excise farmers” [1] were converted into railroad men, as shareholders, supply merchants, or contractors. A new Jewish plutocracy came into being, and its growth excited jealousy and fear among the Russian mercantile cla.s.s. The Government, filled with enthusiasm for the cultivation of large industries, was not as yet prepared to discriminate against the Jews whenever big capital was concerned. But it lent an attentive ear to the ”original” Russian merchants whenever they complained about Jewish compet.i.tion in petty trade, on which the lower Jewish cla.s.ses depended for their livelihood. The Government, which had not yet emanc.i.p.ated itself from the habit of ”a.s.sorting” its citizens and dividing them into a protected and a tolerated cla.s.s, set out to elaborate measures for ”curbing” the Jews belonging to the latter category.